Nasa and Virgin Galactic Workingon Hypersonic Spacecraft

Richard Branson's fledgling aerospace company, Virgin Galactic, is teaming up with Nasa to develop a hypersonic vehicle which will hopefully be the next step in air travel - low orbit aircraft.

By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: February 21, 2007, 4:56 PM PST

NASA said Wednesday it has inked a two-year agreement with space-tourism company Virgin Galactic to collaborate on future technologies for commercial spaceflight.

As part of the deal, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic will work with the scientists and facilities at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley to support its current plans for suborbital spaceflight. By 2008, Virgin Galactic, a U.S. subsidiary of Branson's Virgin Group, plans to take six passengers up to a low-Earth orbit in its SpaceShipTwo. How exactly NASA will assist in that effort is still up for discussion, according to a NASA representative.

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